Fans leave hundreds of mementos behind outside New Hope Baptist Church for Whitney Houston.
Lia Eustachewich
Photos (2)
Photos
Growing up, I wanted to be the greatest at whatever I did, the guy who'd rise above the troubles of my family. I wanted to become the Muhammad Ali, even the Whitney Houston, in my corner of the world.
I wanted to be the best runner, the best baseball player, the best surfer, even if I couldn't swim until I was 8. I grew up at the Jersey Shore but, for so many years, I was too afraid to swim in water that went over my head.
I wanted to be the best writer, even as my college roommate at Rutgers made fun of it, calling it "a bad imitation of Shakespeare." I wanted to be a musician, even if I didn't know my octaves from my falsettos, or my piano keys from my car keys.
I wanted to be a star, but not one of power, money and fame. I wanted to last forever, become a Wikipedia entry that would live on the Internet for a long time, just like the stars I've watched and emulated.
Back in 1986, I first heard Whitney Houston sing "The Greatest Love of All," a song that was written about Ali, and saw her dance in the video, her lips shaking as she reached octaves I could never reach. I never really liked her music, but I wanted to be like her, anyway, because she was the greatest in her corner of the world, the Ali of music.
We grab onto these stars, these Whitney Houstons of our world, for support and inspiration. We hope they can be as good as our parents, and maybe even better. We hope they'll demonstrate the strength and valor that we want from ourselves, and from others.
Time and again, however, when we grab onto them, they merely crumble and flake. We learn that these people, these Whitney Houstons, are perfectly human, perfectly imperfect, more like us than we ever dreamed.
That's what we learned Saturday, the day Whitney Houston succumbed to her own imperfections. That's what we'll hear through the weekend, when she's eulogized at a Newark church, and then laid to rest, all too early, and all too young.
I've watched Whitney Houston in recent years, no longer the greatest of them all, and I've learned that she was more like me than she'd ever admit, if she ever knew who I was.
As I've written in my book, "A Legacy of Madness," I've had at least four generations of my family fall to self-destruction. Like her, addiction and, perhaps, mental illness, was what brought us down. She's had it in her family; I've had it in mine. She's had to look at herself in the mirror, and wonder, just as I have.
I've often talked about feeling so frustrated as I stood on the playgrounds of Point Pleasant Boro, N.J., watching others do things I could never do. They could date a lot of girls, hit home runs over high fences and jump and grab the rims at the basketball courts off Beaver Dam Road, where the library is now. And those rims were only seven feet high.
These kids were the stars of my world, I saw them grow into the surfers and singers—one of whom became a bassist with Stone Temple Pilots—that I dreamed I could be, but knew I could never replicate.
But, soon enough, we'd learn from them, just as we learned from Whitney.
As we got older, I'd feel human, because they would talk to me, and tell me that they, too, had friends and family who also suffered. They, too, suffered themselves, as I did when I went through years of battling bulimia and anorexia, or even some sort of anxiety or social disorder, that held them back, just as it did me.
These were people who wore sweaters that I could never afford, the people who, I thought, didn't have a mother who suffered through years of obsessive compulsive disorder and addiction.
They had the mothers who made cookies and cupcakes, and always gave me some extras to bring home, knowing that I'd never get another chance at tasting them.
Then, some 20 years later, I'd meet these same people through Facebook, and I'd hear about their mothers and fathers, and I'd hear about the pain they went through but never talked about. I'd hear about the struggles their parents had with alcoholism, and how well they hid it even as they made those perfect cupcakes with the rich chocolate icing.
When I first heard Whitney, I barely paid attention to her, or her singing. She came of age when my attention was turned toward the leather-clad rockers like Springsteen and The Clash.
The song that finally got me was "The Greatest Love of All," what could be a perfectly mediocre song that she made eternal. The song was written for a movie about Ali, ironically, but the first time I heard it, it was Whitney singing it.
I heard those peaks in her voice, how she could hold a note almost as long as the song itself. Perfect. I saw her sing "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl in 1991, and I saw how she could do it better than anybody before her, or since.
A generation later, now that we've watched Whitney for so many years battle her own demons, and battle against drinking and drugs, we now know what those songs were.
They were just like the cupcakes, hiding something that we never knew was there, until it was too late.
We would learn, all too late, that she was like the rest of us: Perfectly imperfect.
In This article
-
-
Rutgers University Foundation
7 College Ave, New Brunswick, NJ -
Point Pleasant Borough Hall and Police Department
2233 Bridge Ave, Point Pleasant Boro, NJ -
Ocean County Library, Point Pleasant Borough Branch
834 Beaver Dam Rd, Point Pleasant Boro, NJ
Heather Anderson
1:45 pm on Thursday, February 16, 2012
Awesome article!!
White Honor
4:50 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
@Tom Davis===== NOT
, that she was like the rest of us: Perfectly imperfect ?
Karen Watkins
4:38 pm on Thursday, February 16, 2012
Sooooo true. As a teacher, mother, sister, friend, etc. .... why is it so hard to convince another that just being YOU, is the "real" greatest gift of all? Looking up to others for inspiration and motivation is so healthy,(even with a small dose of jealousy-for it pushes you to achieve) but too many end up comparing themselves, and that's where it can lead to self-destruction, I think? No 2 people could ever be alike! You need to use that inspiration to enhance YOUR own unique gifts!! Wow, I wish by merely stating those words to the ones we loved, it would magically make it "sink" in, right? I, too, really admired W. Houston. Back then, as a student in the education field at Seton Hall, our supervisor used her song, "Greatest Love of All" as the theme for our teaching practicum because it had so much meaning for us and our important role in the shaping of children!! I'm glad you wrote that article because so many people, that I've run into, seem content to just forget her because she's just another "drug attic" in Hollywood! She was like NO other. :( I felt sad and it's been bothering me all week. Thanks.
maryellen reilly
10:29 pm on Thursday, February 16, 2012
She was an incredible talent that like so many human beings succumb to addiction because they feel that they can not live up to their celebrity. I hope that everyone can remember her as the talented woman that she was and not the tabloid "drug addict" . She deserves the respect that she has earned. God bless you Whitney for peace that you could not receive on earth
White Honor
4:58 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
@ Karen Watkins
so many people, that I've run into, seem content to just forget her because she's just another "drug attic" in Hollywood! She was like NO other. SHE was like anyother "drug attic"
PB
5:19 pm on Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tom, you write "...That's what we learned Saturday, the day Whitney Houston succumbed to her own imperfections...."
I would say Whitney's problem was that she NEVER succumbed to her own imperfections. She never embraced the person who she truly was, and this led to her tragic end.
I wrote something similar to this in a blog post on http://imperfectglory.com Part of it reads
"....Whitney was imperfect, but her voice was glorious. It’s when she tried to become perfect, that she stumbled from glory. Once she realized the impossible task of the worlds expectations for her, she decided to numb the reality with drugs, addictions and destructive relationships....."
Thanks for sharing your thoughts....If we want to live life fully, we have to learn how to embrace our flaws and imperfections
White Honor
4:58 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
@ maryellen reilly / PB==succumbed to her own imperfections / She was an incredible talent that like so many human beings succumb to addiction
This is WHY or kids think it is OK to do drugs
David Daur
1:12 pm on Friday, February 17, 2012
I can't believe nobody is publicly blaming Bobby Brown for this beautiful woman's demise!... and this is coming from a man. He was a piece of garbage, a thug who brought her down and now, even though he's been an absentee father in the last fews years, he can see the dollar signs that are going to be attaching to their daughter Bobbi Kristina and wants to be there now. This man didn't even rush to his daughter's side when her mother died because he was to busy getting ready to go on stage that evening for a concert.
White Honor
5:02 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
@ David Daur You can't believe nobody is publicly blaming Bobby Brown for this beautiful woman's demise!... BUT she""" succumbed to her own imperfections''' / '''She was an incredible talent that like so many human beings succumb to addiction '''' so LETS blam SOMEONE
dave
6:36 am on Saturday, February 18, 2012
too much of anything is no good!!!!
White Honor
5:02 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
@ dave
LIKE
Nan Narfe Coll
12:09 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
There is so much truth in this article. The most important truths are - we are all imperfect by virtue of being human beings and we all have family secrets. Frankly, all this publicity is improper. We should not be privy to her family secrets. If she does something wrong when being paid for an appearance e.g., performing while under the influence it would be fair game. We do not know the attempts members of her family or close friends did or did not do in an attempt to help her. Yes, her husband may have been a big part of her problems but it does no good to thrash it out. It will hurt her daughter who is also his daughter. Her mother has the worst heartache I can ever imagine, burying her daughter and deserves not to have all this nonsense. Gov Christie did the right thing. It will help her mother, daughter and others who are suffering. Enough of what is/was her private life - tend to your own faults and or helping your family deal with their problems.
White Honor
5:08 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
This is WHY or kids think it is OK to do drugs
lacey 4 ever
3:52 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
you need help michael p. you deleted a comment where you were singing her praises and once you saw some of the negative comments you completely flipped your opinion to spew hate. i,m sure some counseling and meds can help you out. only a vile slug like you could write such hate filled rants while the church service is going on.
lacey 4 ever
3:54 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
getinvolved you actually blame houston for what millions of people were doing since before she was even born? you got issues too
Michael P Hendrickson
5:11 pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012
That wasn't very nice to say now was it.Only a person like you would call me a vile slug after whitney's church service.
Eric Thomas
7:30 am on Sunday, February 19, 2012
Ms. Houston is dead. My condolences to her family.
Ms. Houston made a choice. She voluntarily imbibed controlled substances. Her reason for doing so is irrelevant. With all the publicity given to the frequently catastrophic consequences of drug abuse, it is just plain false to attribute her misdeed to anything but her own foolhardy conduct.
American flags are put at half-staff when heroes die. Whitney Houston was a performer, and a junkie. Gov. Christie's order to lower the flags was dead wrong.
Whitney was dead wrong.
Now she's dead. And her death was 100% preventable. Had she taken responsibility for her own life, she would walk among us today.
She made her choice. And it is left to her to answer why she squandered her life away.
Steve Domanski
7:53 am on Sunday, February 19, 2012
The world is now a better place without her !!!!
jojo
9:29 am on Sunday, February 19, 2012
I think Christie lowered the flag not to be racist...It is Newark dont forget...
Gene
11:50 am on Sunday, February 19, 2012
Whitney was a great,great singer.
Whitney made some real bad choices.
We who are honest recognize both.
Some of you other knuckleheads should jump into the Republican primary.
Stephanie Barrett
2:47 pm on Sunday, February 19, 2012
Whitney was an addict, and those of you who think that she chose this life do not understand addiction. An addict no matter what their drug of choice is, is hooked from the first time that person tried cocaine or alcohol. That is when the downward spiral started. And yes some do manage to get it together, but it is a gift and a God given grace with the help of a fellowship of people who have been there before them. It is sad that so many including the broadcasters were spouting about the whys of Whitney's death, and no matter what the coroner final report says, it was the addiction that killed her. Whether her husband killed her by introducing her to this lifestyle,I do not know that any of us knew for sure. Just remember the road to destruction starts with the first drink.
Stevie